Maoists want to overthrow Indian state by 2050: Pillai

Maoists have plans to overthrow the Indian democracy through their armed struggle and want to control the government by 2050, Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai on Friday said.

Addressing a seminar on "Left Wing Extremism Situation in India", Pillai said the Maoists might be getting the help of some former soldiers in carrying out subversive activities.

"The overthrow of the Indian state is not something they are willing to do tomorrow or the day after. Their strategy, according to a booklet they circulated, is that they are looking for at 2050, some documents say in 2060," he said.

According to Pillai, Naxals were not looking at to overthrow the Indian state in 2012 or 2013, it was a long steady plan and in the past 10 years they slowly build up the movement.

"Now they can bring many sectors of Indian economy into their knees. But they don't want to do it today. They know that if they do that now, the state will come very hard.

They are not fully prepared to face the onslaught of the state machinery. So, they would rather go very slowly," he said.

The Home Secretary said the Maoists were a very highly motivated and well trained force like any armed force of any country and they could be helped by some ex-army personnel.

"They are very highly motivated, highly trained. I am quite certain that there are some, may be some ex-army or some people who have been with them," he said.

Giving reason for this conclusion, Pillai said after launching any attack, the Naxals conduct a post-mortem and analyse the whole operation.

"After every attack, they do a post-mortem and analysis. The analysis is as good as armed forces of any country does," he said.

The Home Secretary said 908 people have lost their lives last year, the highest since 1971, in Naxal violence and it may go up in this year and next year become coming down.

"It is quite like that the violence will go up in 2010 or 2011 before the tide is begin to turn," he said.

According to Pillai, even though the joint anti-Naxal operations were going on, the Naxals have not suffered any significant reverses so far and the government would need seven to eight years to have full control over the areas which were lost to the Maoists.

"The operations have not hit even five per cent of hardcore militants. The real armed cadres are yet to come out," he said, adding unless they feel the heat they will not come for talks and whatever statement they were making about peace were not serious.

Offensive against Maoist genocidal: Arundhati Roy

Terming the government's decision to launch an offensive to "wipe out" Maoists as "genocidal", writer Arundhati Roy on Friday said such action will kill lakhs, if not millions of people.

"I don't know how government decides who is a Maoist. If you want to wipe out the Maoists, which is a kind of genocidal language that is being used, you are talking about killing lakhs, if not millions of people," Roy told reporters in New Delhi.

She said since the Naxalbari days, the government has followed "the policy of extermination" while dealing with Maoists.

Raising doubts that Maoists could be wiped out, she said, "The movement has always comeback stronger, better equipped and more politically orgainsed because it's an imagination fighting a different kind of imagination and you cannot wipe it out in military ways."

Reacting to Roy's view, Pillai said the government is ready to talk if Maoist abjure violence.

"We are willing to discuss everything. We can stop all the operation if they just abjure violence," Pillai said at the seminar.

He said since they (Maoists) do not believe in Parliamentary democracy, "so where is the scope of discussion? "Let Arundhati Roy get a commitment from the Maoists that they are willing to give up arms."

Sympathising with the poor people for taking up arms, Roy said, "What are they to do, if a platoon of 300 to 1,000 policemen arrive, march through the night and surround the village, raping and burning and killing (people)? Can they have a Satyagrah? Who is listening to them?"

She said "it was not up to us" to decide and press our morality on them on what kind of resistance somebody over there should adopt or not adopt.

"Normally, it does happen in situation where people are being armed and they go uncontrolled as it happened in Kashmir and it happened everywhere."

She said she would be on the side of the person who is trying to bring to the forefront issues of justice than to push injustice through the barrel of the gun down the throats of the poor in the country.

Intelligence prior to Silda attack to be probed

The committee named to probe the Maoist attack in West Midnapore district that killed 24 EFR jawans would look into prior Intelligence inputs and also possible lapses.

The three-member committee, headed by West Bengal Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen, met for the first time on Friday and said it would ascertain how EFR personnel could be provided improved infrastructure. The other members are ADG (CID) Raj Kanojia and IGP (Western Range) Zulfikar Hassan.

Talking to reporters in Kolkata, Sen said besides looking into the Intelligence inputs, lapses and officials responsible during the February 15 attack in Silda would also be looked into by the panel.

Sen said that steps would be taken for fortification of camps of security forces in Maoist-hit areas in the state.

Suggestions given by Governor M K Narayanan after his visit to Salua, the area headquarters of EFR, would also be looked into, Sen said.

The suggestions included overall improvement in security, lighting in camps, construction of walls around camp and steps to prevent sudden attack by Maoists, he said.

The committee, which has been asked to submit its report within two months, would visit Silda and another camp to ascertain security measures, he said.

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